40 HISTORY or BUITISII FERNS. 



it is covered witli silky, hair-like scales, and, if cut into, is 

 found to have a soft inside, Avitli a reddish, flesh-coloured 

 appearance. And no doubt, ■when the herbage of its native 

 plains fails, its leaves, too, dry up, both perishing from 

 the same cause, but having no dependence the one on the 

 other. Thus it is that simple people have been persuaded 

 that in the deserts of Scythia there existed creatures which 

 were half animal, half plant. 



